Pearl Harbor comes to life in Ohio History Connection archives

Editor’s note: Italics are used for some of the archival writings and transcriptions. The all caps portions reflect the actual telegrams in the first part of the story.

The adjutant general sent the Western-Union telegram to the York family in Columbus at 1:02 a.m. on Dec. 11, 1941: THE SECRETARY OF WAR DESIRED ME TO EXPRESS HIS DEEP REGRET THAT YOUR SON PRIVATE IRA L. YORK WAS WOUNDED IN ACTION IN DEFENSE OF HIS COUNTRY IN HAWAII DECEMBER SEVENTH.

A. Phillip York wired back on Dec. 16 to find out more about his son, asking, in part: WILL YOU PLEASE BE GOOD ENOUGH TO OBTAIN AND WIRE ME THE INFORMATION (ON) ... HIS PRESENT CONDITION AS PROMPTLY AS POSSIBLE.

It wouldn’t be until Dec. 19, however, that the family heard from Private York himself in a one-sentence telegram arriving at 5:35 a.m.: MAKING RAPID RECOVERY DON’T WORRY NOT MAIMED.

A few days later, a handwritten letter finally arrived at the family’s home from York, who had graduated from The Ohio State University in 1937 and enlisted in the Army in June 1941. He served with a coastal anti-aircraft artillery unit at Fort Kamehameha on Oahu.

Writing in curlicue cursive on Army & Navy stationary, he begins: You probably know by now I was wounded Sunday morning. A plane dived on me and one slug went through my leg and another hit me in the lower abdomen.

He continued. I am well on the road to recovery. Don’t worry about me and take good care of yourself.

Such was the agony of the Pearl Harbor attack and its aftermath. The waiting. And waiting. And waiting some more. The not knowing back home.

As more time passes since the attack that launched the U.S. into World War II — 76 years ago on Dec. 7, 1941 — and as so few veterans from that day remain alive, the worth of every letter, telegram, diary and written or recorded firsthand account from that time grows.

“There is a tangible effect from holding such a piece of history in your hand,” said Emmy Beach, public-relations manager at the Ohio History Connection in Columbus, where York’s personal papers — formal Army correspondence, handwritten letters, telegrams, photographs and news clippings — from his military career are part of the war-history collection.

“There’s life in holding a letter that doesn’t exist in the first Google entry when you pull up ‘Pearl Harbor,’” Beach said. “Letters and diaries are gold. Personalities come through and someone becomes real to us.”

York was awarded the Purple Heart for his injuries. Newspapers in Columbus and elsewhere featured his story partly because, after he recovered, he went on a radio tour to raise money for government war bonds. York, who had studied theater and was an actor, told publications that he fired probably 60 rounds from his rifle and 300 from his machine gun that morning. He shot down a Japanese plane before being hit by the enemy fire.

“I got him. Sure I felt good,” he told one newspaper. “It was him or me. I guess I yelled, ‘dead bird.’”

York died in Columbus in 1972 of natural causes.

His file is just one of several Pearl Harbor-related items the museum has in its collection and available to the public, said manuscript curator John Haas. Other firsthand accounts from Dec. 7, 1941, exist in the form of oral histories collected by the Columbus World War II Roundtable.

Among them are the recollections of Navy veteran John R. Thomas, who was aboard the USS Oklahoma, one of the ships sunk on Battleship Row in that 7:55 a.m. attack.

Like so many sailors that morning, Thomas had just finished his breakfast. He was on the ship’s quarterdeck when he saw an officer running for an intercom. He recalled: I heard his message. “All hands man your battle stations, those Japs are here dropping real torpedoes and bombs. This is no B.S.”

His account says he made it below deck to man his gun turret but the ship was already taking on water and had lost power. It listed quickly. Thomas’ account says he outran and out-climbed the rising water and made it to the upper deck even as the ship was on its side. The walls became floors and they were oily and slick. I jumped into the burning water, swimming under and through the fire.

Within eight minutes, it as all over for the Oklahoma. The ship had capsized, trapping about one-third of its crew below deck. He recalled: Can you imagine being trapped in a ship, upside down in complete darkness, with water slowly rising and covering your body?

But Thomas had been one of the lucky ones. He made it through the water and aboard another ship, the Maryland. He closed out his oral history with this: We must remember what happened at Pearl Harbor and keep America alert.

Haas said the attack never will vanish from the nation’s collective mind. “Pearl Harbor changed everything completely,” he said. “Once that happened it was no holds barred. Now, we’re in the war.”

Nevertheless, collections like those at the museum offer a look through a different lens. As he discussed the war Tuesday at a conference room at the history museum, Haas pulled from an acid-free box a six-inch thick scrapbook. The faded pages of “Life” and “Look” magazines and from newspapers glued to the pages and tucked inside crackled as Haas touched them. The room suddenly smelled like your grandma’s attic.

The scrapbook is one of six donated in the collection of Frederick Shedd that chronicles the war. Haas said there’s something about original manuscripts and writing that is compelling; people want to see them. He flipped to the pages that contained news of the Pearl Harbor attack.

“For some reason, even after all this time, the shock of Pearl Harbor hasn’t worn off,” Haas said. “FDR said it was a date that would live in infamy. And he was right.”